Avoidable Tragedy

This morning the ubiquitous hotel gift of the USA Today did not show up outside our room. So I stopped by the front desk and they gave me a copy of the local newspaper, the Charleston Post & Courier. You know I can't start my morning without a newspaper, any newspaper.

The headline on the front page was 3 Dead in Boating Nightmare. Several people who live on a small island which is only approachable by boat were returning home when their boat capsized 15 feet from shore. None of the passengers were wearing life vests and none knew how to swim! The tragedy is magnified by how preventable it was. An 11-month old baby survived because he was in a boat seat, but by the time help got to him his body temperature was in the 80s and his survival is still uncertain.

If you live on an island that has no bridge linking it to the mainland, shouldn't learning to swim be a priority? And failing that, shouldn't you scrupulously abide by boating laws requiring life vests? I admit that I have ridden many times in boats without wearing a life vest. But I am a good swimmer. Arguably, I should still wear one in case I am knocked unconscious in a boating accident. But I don't. So I'm being kind of hypocritical here. I admit it.

The final piece of the story that left me pondering people's choices and the solutions they posit was this:

Smalls, the injured infant's grandfather, said he hopes residents will reconsider the need for a bridge after this deadly accident.

Residents fought attempts to build a bridge from mainland in the 1990s, arguing that it would open Sandy Island to development. They said they preferred to go back and forth by boat.

Is the way to prevent this kind of tragedy a matter of taxpayers paying millions to build a bridge or for residents of the island to take responsibility for themselves and learn how to swim and adhere to boat safety rules?

Di

Comments

[joAnn]

"Is the way to prevent this kind of tragedy a matter of taxpayers paying millions to build a bridge or for residents of the island to take responsibility for themselves and learn how to swim and adhere to boat safety rules?"

What an awful and avoidable tragedy.

Your question has a simple answer....in our country's current environment, so few people take responsibility for themselves. People want the govt. to take care of them. Very sad - where is that spirit for which American were famous? This is one of the main reasons why Obama was elected. He promised to solve the voters' problems for them. People were dancing in the streets on election night, rejoicing about the new cars they could now buy and the mortgages they would now be able to afford (right, on an extra $13 a week!).

As I heard a woman say on TV last night, in response to a question about the housing mess,...."I rescued myself by buying a house I could afford, working hard, and paying the mortgage. So what kind of reward do I get?" Now that is my kind of gal! When our house's value plummeted just before we put our last house on the market, we dealt with it. We did not expect anyone's help.

[fudgelady]

I absolutely agree with you, Di -- these people should have known how to swim, if they weren't going to faithfully wear life jackets. And while I certainly understand the grandfather's pain, the "bridge" solution is not needed; common sense is. I've spent a lot of summers on boats, and as a kid, I thought the life jackets were a bulky pain in the butt, but I wore them every time. Because, on a boat, things happen -- they just do. I remember being in a rowboat with my father and capsizing during a routine switch of rowers.

I hope the baby doesn't pay the ultimate price for the grownups' idiocy.

A quick correction to JoAnn's comment: President Obama did not say he'd solve all our problems for us -- it's a team effort between government and all citizens, as he made clear during his Inaugural Address: "What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility -- a recognition on the part of every American that we have duties to ourselves, our nation and the world; duties that we do not grudgingly accept, but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character than giving our all to a difficult task. This is the price and the promise of citizenship."

[Leigh]

Life jackets. I mean, really. Or, a good hard look at why these residents cannot swim, despite being surrounded by water. Free lessons,and free life jackets. But no bridge.

[joAnn]

A quick correction to Fudgelady....Obama said he would solve all the nation's problems during the campaign, not in his inaugural address. By then, he had been elected and no longer had to make such ridiculous claims....that is what a campaign is for, right?

I never said that he stated this in his inaugural address.